The National Court has found Prime Minister O’Neill’s submission through his lawyers to be speculative and without proper evidentiary basis.

Presiding National Court Justice Ere Kariko while going through his 16 page decision said: ““I find this submission to be speculative and without proper evidentiary basis.

“Importantly though, I reiterate that the administration and control of the police force is vested in the Commissioner of Police under the Constitution.

“Administrative matters are for him to resolve and not this court. “The fact that the police commissioner agrees not to arrest the plaintiffs is a matter for him also,” Justice Kariko said in his ruling.

“He said there was no need for the court’s endorsement on how the commissioner should discharge his constitutional duties and functions.

“He therefore dismissed the application and adjourned the matter to June 6 for the substantive hearing of the taxation before Justice Catharine Davani.”

This means it is now up to the acting police commissioner Geoffrey Vaki on whether to enforce the warrant of arrest against the Prime Minister.

It is also understood the Prime Minister’s lawyers would file an appeal against the decision at the Supreme Court this week. It is also believed that Mr Vaki has been fully appointed as the Police Commissioner and not on acting basis any more.

In 16 page decision, Justice Kariko, after going through the submissions found that most of the submissions by all parties focused on whether the court should exercise its discretionary power to restrain the police from effecting an arrest.

Justice Kariko said the court was however concerned that an exercise of that discretionary power could interfere with the functions of police under section 197 of the Constitution.

The judge also inclined to exercise the courts discretion to endorse a proposed consent order on the basis that the police force was not a party to the substantive proceedings, there was no relevance of the interim orders when the substantive matter relates to taxation of costs and there was not serious question to be tried in the substantive proceedings.

The judge further refused the submissions by the Prime Minister’s lawyer regarding a “rift” amongst the ranks of the police force alleged to have been caused by officers involved in the criminal investigations.

The Waigani National Court refused the application by Prime Minister Peter O’Neill to stop a warrant of arrest against him. The warrant of arrest issued by police some three weeks ago was in relation to the controversial payment of more than K71 million in legal bills to Paul Paraka lawyers.

Investigations by police fraud officers with the assistance of the recently disbanded Investigations Task Force Sweep implicated Mr O’Neill, Finance Minister James Marape, then Treasury Minister Don Polye and several other high ranking government officers in what police claimed fraudulent payments to Paul Paraka lawyers.

Mr O’Neill was implicated as the author of a letter requesting the Finance and Treasury departments to approve the payments. Then Police Commissioner Tom Kulunga wrote to Mr O’Neill advising him to comply with a warrant of arrest and call in for police interview on the allegations.

However, Mr O’Neill refused to comply with the warrant of arrest, claiming that the arrest warrant was wrongly issued and was politically motivated.

He therefore asked his lawyers to file an urgent application at the National Court to stay the warrant of arrest pending the determination of a taxation proceeding which Finance Minister James Marape filed to justify the legality of the payments to Paraka Lawyers.

Other parties involved in the matter including police agreed to Mr O’Neill’s application and asked the court to grant a stay on the arrest warrant.PNGFacts/Post